Posts from December 2006

December 19, 2006

Do you ever find yourself looking at the things on your to-do list and stressing out because you "need to" do this, you "have to" do that, and you "must" get the other thing done?

If you do, you're a prime candidate for stress reduction - just by eliminating those words from your vocabulary. What happens when you start saying, "I have to," etc.? Here's a quick snip from an article that explores the idea further:

You've just created a lot of demands on yourself. And yes, in order for your life to continue like you want, you would prefer to do all those things exactly as you have envisioned. But you don't NEED to, HAVE-TO or MUST.

By using demanding statements on yourself, you open up a lot of opportunities to say irrational things to yourself that create stress.

When you use demanding statements, you then create a scenario of "what-if" in your head. And when the "what-if's" back-up, then watch out stress level!

"What if I don't get it done, what if I don't get there in time to get the kids, what if this, what if that." This is when you really go into stress mode!

Asking such open-ended questions is the origin much of your stress. You often answer with "that would be awful, that would be terrible" which compounds the stressful feelings even more.

Since awful and terrible are labels way beyond bad, (actually labels that are beyond definition) you've created a situation in your head that ends up with you saying to yourself "?and I couldn't stand it if that happened," or "?I couldn't stand feeling that way!"

You can see how that could start to spiral. So what do you do about it? Here's what the article suggests:

First, flag such have-to, must, need-to statements in your head. Then replace the needs, musts and have-tos with preferences, desires, and wants.

Then when something doesn't go according to your desires, reduce the awfuls and terribles to simply, bad. Then rest-assure yourself that you can stand it.

What if you don't make it to the bank? What if you're late picking up the kids?? Well, it's not what you wanted, it may indeed even have consequences which may be bad, but in the overall scheme of things it isn't awful and you CAN stand it.

...Remember: whenever you hear yourself saying "need-to, have-to, got-to, etc" replace it with want-to or would like to. Substitute needs with desires; musts with preferences.

December 18, 2006

One of the best resources we have is the knowledge and insight we could bring to the game if we would just slow down and reflect. Unfortunately, we're often so busy doing that we allow that resource to go largely untapped.

One that is one of those no-brainer ideas that still needs to be said is this: "Make time." Here's what Kevin suggests...

1) Make time Reflection is about having time. We all have the time, regardless of how busy are schedules are.

Reflect in the shower.

Reflect on the drive to work (turn off your radio or your iPod and think).

Reflect in the moments before you go to sleep.

Reflect with your family as you eat a meal.

Turn off the television.

There is time - we just have to carve it out.

So many people out there are addicted to their high-pace, high-density lives. They're so busy going-going-going that they can't bring themselves to stop and look at where they've been, where they are, and where they're going (or who they've been, who they are, and who they want to be, for that matter). That's a pretty good recipe for getting lost.

One of the obstacles I've seen with people over the years is not so much that they don't have time (though they may feel like it at first), as that they don't choose to give that reflection priority. And so the minutes and hours of their days get filled with just about anything else.

If that's you, how about creating a habit of self-reflection - where you start to reach for it reflexively and automatically? Kevin's suggestions of finding the small spaces where that reflection can fit is a great place to start.

Where can you find time to reflect? Where are the potential pockets of time? How can you create a self-reflection habit?

December 15, 2006

When I say, "mentor," what comes to mind? Usually it's someone with more experience who has done what you want to do, or who has insights on specific elements of what you need to succeed in your journey. Someone who knows more than you do who can share that knowledge and offer guidance.

In a post about finding good mentors by developing relationships, Penelope Trunk - one of my favorite bloggers - points out a different kind of mentor that can be just as important...

“There are two kinds of mentors. The instrumental mentors give
practical help, and the socio-emotional mentors look to build your
confidence and let you know they believe in you...

As one who has suffered more confidence meltdowns along the way than I care to remember, I can't stress enough how important this can be. It's a strange truth that often others have a much more accurate picture of our potential and ability than we do ourselves. Getting that outside perspective from time to time can have a hugely positive impact.

Penelope goes on to talk about cultivating those mentor relationships...

You can build a great network of contacts, but when you have a
crisis in confidence you need someone who is emotionally invested in
you. To cultivate that emotional investment, keep in touch; a mentor
follows your career over a long period of time. Send updates about what
you’re doing, offer congratulations on the mentor’s big moves and be on
the lookout for quick little ways to build a long, meaningful
relationship.

Who are your emotional mentors? Where do you turn when you need a boost to your confidence and a reminder that you have what it takes?

December 14, 2006

Christine Kane has a great post on how to plug your energy leaks. No, she's not talking about airtight doors and double-paned windows, she's talk about personal energy leaks. Maybe it's best if I let her explain....

Part of creating an authentic, powerful, serene, present-moment life is
actually practical. It has to do with your energy and your focus. You
want your energy and focus to be in the present moment. The present
moment is where you create. It’s where you visualize. It’s where you
shift your thoughts. And it’s where you find gratitude. If you’re
continually losing your focus and getting scattered, your energy might
be shooting outward to other places and thoughts and things.

What exactly is an energy leak? Here's Christine again...

A leak or an energy drain is any incomplete task, to-do, idea, or
memory that drains your energy - even a little bit - when you think of
it, or when you see it.

So for example...

It might be the thank you note that you keep forgetting to write to
someone because you don’t have the right note cards. It might be the
pants in a heap on your closet floor because they need to be hemmed. It
might be the phone call(s) you need to return to potential clients. It
might be a honkin’ full email box.

Etc., etc. You get the idea. So how do you plug those leaks? Christine offers up a step-by-step system she uses. You can read it in detail on her blog, but the short version is...

1 - Get a partner who will cheer you on. Or meet with several people and plan to check-in with each other...

2 - Get a blank piece of paper and pen. Start a list of any items that come up that feel undone, incomplete, and leak-y...carry that piece of paper around with you for two days. Any time something nags at you, or drains your energy, put it on the list.

3 - When you feel that the list is complete for now, then re-write it so it looks nice.

4 - Start with the easiest things to do.

5 - As you go through the list, some things will start to feel harder, especially if you’ve included unresolved issues in your relationships or health. The momentum you’ve gained will help you get through these in surprising ways.

6 - Once you get clearer and more energetic as you complete items over a period of time, you’ll have less tolerance for things that take that kind of energy

7 - At some point you’ll start crossing things off your list before they ever make it on your list.

I've been almost drowning in leaks since I got back from Cambodia. I can name a dozen little niggling things that I need to take care of that have been occupying mental space and cluttering up my focus.

December 13, 2006

Kammie over at Passion Meets Purpose recently had a link to a great blog called The Chief Happiness Officer by Alexander Kjerulf (he's got a book coming out called Happy Hour is 9 to 5 - I love the title!).

On it, I discovered a draft version of his Happy at Work Manifesto, "a declaration of principles and intentions for those of us who have decided, that we want to be happy at work." It gets a little long and maybe over-detailed, but it has some great points. Here are three of my favorites:

3: My happiness at work is my responsibility4: Knowing what makes me happy or unhappy at work is my responsibility5: Letting others know what makes me happy or unhappy at work is my responsibility

Taken together, these three are HUGE. Your happiness, your delight in your work, your feeling of fulfillment in what you do, are 100% your responsibility. There is no happy-fairy who's going to float down and shower you with magic happy dust (yeah, I know - that was a tough one for me to swallow too...sorry to burst your bubble).

If you don't a) figure out what makes you happy and b) put it out there so others can help you get there, your chances of finding it are slim.

At the heart of the system I developed to help people find passion in their career is an internal compass I call the Passion Core. In a nutshell, it consists of the underlying characteristics of what lights you up.

Identifying your Passion Core (i.e., knowing what makes you happy) is beneficial because it helps you focus your efforts in a direction that leaves you feeling energized and engaged. It's also valuable as a tool to help your boss know how to get the most out of you (if you love what you're doing, you'll likely to it better and have more energy to put into it. Everybody wins.).

December 12, 2006

FYI, I have the remainder of my edited down batch of Cambodia pictures uploaded to flickr if you want to take a look. The first two pages are temples (Angkor Wat, etc.), so if you get bored with that, you can skip to the third page.

If there's one thing I've discovered over the years, it's that just about anything we set our minds to is possible. Moreover, one of the biggest - if not the biggest - obstacle we face lies smack dab between our ears.

We're often so overcome with fear of what might go wrong that we don't dare to even take a step.

What would you do if you could look that fear in the face and giggle? What would you do if you could feel that fear and just plow ahead anyway? Where would your dreams take you? What would your reality look like?

Not a bad question to ponder as we start nudging up against the new year.

December 11, 2006

When it comes to creating the future we want for ourselves, it makes sense to leverage all the resources we have at our disposal. One incredibly powerful resource we have that all too often gets neglected is our intuition.

A reminder on the Collective Genius! blog. I am going to cut posting off at the end of the day Friday, so if you have something you'd like to share on it, now would be a great time. Again, you can see more about the topic - thriving in the discomfort zone - and s

December 10, 2006

In a comment on my post on strategic refueling, Jeremy made an analogy of timing your physical training to allow peak performance for a specific event. His physical training reference got me thinking about my favorite workout back when my knees still cooperated with my running - fartlek training.

Fartlek - literally "speed play" in Swedish - is basically unstructured interval training, where you mix short bursts of hard running with slow running for recovery. In looking for a description, I found this page, which had this to say:

There is no predetermined schedule to follow, but instead the athlete will set her/his own interval lengths and pace in response to their own feeling of the workload. An advantage of Fartlek is that the athlete can concentrate on feeling the pace and their physical response to it, thereby developing self awareness and pace judgement skills. Also the athlete is free to experiment with pace and endurance, and to experience changes of pace.

The bold highlight is my own addition. That sentence got me thinking about how little we focus on developing self-awareness in terms of our optimum pace and how we work best, and how much our our work (and our lives, for that matter) could benefit if we paid more attention to it.

When you're running and you pay attention to what happens when you push it, ease back, etc., you develop a feel for what works and what doesn't. You get a better feel for how hard or how long you can push it before your performance is adversely affected.

You get to know what that peak performance looks like, and how it feels, and when just enough pushing it becomes too much. You start to develop an intuitive sense of it all.

What if we applied that same idea to our work? What if, rather than a constant headlong rush to push, push, push, we started paying attention to our pace and our performance. When do we shine? When does our performance start to fall off? What effect does slowing down have? What effect does speeding up have? How long can we maintain a high pace before we need to ease off?

The more we pay attention, the more information we have to apply to future performance. We could even take a "training log" approach to it, recording in a journal how hard we feel like we've been working, how we feel about our performance, how much downtime we've been giving ourselves, etc.

Keeping a "training log" for our work would create a history to look back on, spot trends, etc.